Large financial groups were ordered to shell out more than £160m in compensation to customers in 2011 as the UK Financial Services Authority cracked down on mistreatment of retail investors by some of the UK’s best-known firms.

The compensation payments dwarfed the £55.7m in corporate fines imposed last year by the City watchdog on firms including HSBC, Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland

Of course £205 million is peanuts in relation to the assets of these organisations. The point is more significant:they can’t be trusted to undertake even the most basic of tasks properly. And yet we still bow to their demands.

8 Responses to “In bankers don’t we trust”

Those UK “retail investors” who have found justice and compensation via the UK Financial Services Authority (FSA) should be thankful that their “mistreatment” regarding financial services and products did not occur on the Isle of Man, Guernsey or Jersey.

In these jurisdictions the word “regulation” is a huge charade and part of an elaborate window dressing sham to lure naïve (often elderly) people into transferring their life savings to these obnoxious islands.

BE WARNED: These secretive islands have no effective regulation of financial products; there is no freedom of information and there is no competent authority to complain to when things go wrong. For example the Isle of Man the Financial Supervision Commission (FC) has no remit to investigate unfair trading or provide any consumer protection services.

All activities are centred on providing secrecy and concealment for the companies, lawyers and accountants engaged in protecting the three islands huge tax dodging industries. To deposit or invest money here is to enter a black hole of fraudulence and treachery.

Not only are the financial penalties for malpractice derisory but none of them will face prosecution for the more questionable ways of going about their business. In short they are going to get away with it. Rather like the copper thieves being fined far less than the value of the copper they have stolen.

Unfortunately for the thousands of people (often pensioners) who lose their life savings this Dictionary is only made available to them AFTER the island has filched all their money. Similar Dictionaries are in use on Jersey and Guernsey.

In fairness, my experience has only been with the High St Banks & , yes, they are useless, but I’m not sure how re;levant that is to their “trading arms”
My experience of the High St branches is that twice in the last 3 years they’ve agreed to pay me relatively large hand-outs, having utterly failed to do what was required. Since interest payments are virtually nil anyway, the hand-outs are welcome, but I don’t understand what was so difficult !
They haven’t agreed to pay any compensation, & the Banking Ombusman agrred with them, for what I considered the most appalling failure;
ringing me up & saying “hello, are you Mr P%%%%%% ?”
“yes”
“Can I take you through some security questions ?”
“No, you rang me up. Give me your office number & I’ll ring you back”
“sorry, these are outgoing lines only”
“So, you ring me & then expect me to divulge all my security details ? Can you see a problem with that ?”
“Err, yes, but its what the bank requires”
“OK, well, goodnight”